Wednesday, January 9, 2013

The Complete Results Of This Years National Baseball Hall Of Fame Balloting

For the first time since 1996 and only the 8th time since
voting began in 1936, the Baseball Writers Association of America did not elect
anyone to be enshrined in the National Baseball Hall of Fame.Craig Biggio, in his first year of
eligibility, came the closest to reaching the 75% ballot threshold needed,
falling just 39 votes short of election, appearing on 388 out of the 569
ballots.Jack Morris, the
returning player with the highest vote total, was just behind Biggio with 385
votes.Morris has been on the
ballot for 14 years now and has one more year of eligibility.

There were 20 players on the ballot who will not be eligible
for next year’s ballot.Of those
19 will not appear again because they failed to secure at least 5% of the
votes.They include Bernie
Williams, Kenny Lofton, Sandy Alomar Jr., Julio Franco, David Wells, and Shawn
Green.The one player who secured
at least 5% of the vote has lost eligibility because of the 15 year ballot
limit is Dale Murphy.Murphy will
become eligible for induction to the Hall in 5 years but will have to wait
until 2019 for a chance to be voted in through the Expansion Era Committee as
part of the 2020 Hall Of Fame ceremonies.

There will still be an induction ceremony in Cooperstown,
N.Y., on July 28 as longtime Yankees owner Jacob Ruppert, umpire Hank O'Day and
catcher Deacon White, who were elected into the Hall of Fame by the
Pre-Integration Committee last month, will receive their honors
posthumously.

On that day the Hall of Fame will also recognize 12
individuals previously counted among its roster of members who never had a
formal induction due to wartime restrictions. They are Lou Gehrig (1939) and
Rogers Hornsby (1942), along with the entire class of 1945 that was selected by
the Committee on Old Timers: Roger Bresnahan, Dan Brouthers, Fred Clarke, Jimmy
Collins, Ed Delahanty, Hugh Duffy, Hughie Jennings, King Kelly, Jim O’Rourke
and Wilbert Robinson, all of whom are deceased.

The day before that, on July 27, during a ceremony at
Doubleday Field, Tom Cheek, former Toronto Blue Jays announcer, will be honored
with the Ford C. Frick Award.He
is also deceased and it is expected his wife, Shirley, will be in Cooperstown
to accept the award.

Also to be honored on the 27th at Doubleday Field is the
only person who is still with us this year, Paul Hagen. He will be presented
the J.G. Taylor Spink Award for "meritorious contributions to baseball
writing."He has been
reporting on Baseball for close to 40 years, most notably covering the Phillies
for the Philadelphia Daily News from 1987 to 2011.He is also a former president of the Baseball Writers
Association of America.

The 2013 ballot featured 37 candidates, with 13 returnees
and 24 newcomers.Here are the
final results

PlayerTotalPercentage

(Years on ballot)Votes

Players who will be on next year’s ballot

Craig Biggio (1)38868.2

Jack Morris (14)38567.7

Jeff Bagwell (3)33959.6

Mike Piazza (1)32957.8

Tim Raines (6)29752.2

Lee Smith (11)27247.8

Curt Schilling (1)22138.8

Roger Clemens (1)21437.6

Barry Bonds (1)20636.2

Edgar Martinez (4)20435.9

Alan Trammell (12)19133.6

Larry Walker (3)12321.6

Fred McGriff (4)11820.7

Mark McGwire (7)9616.9

Don Mattingly (13)7513.2

Sammy Sosa (1)7112.5

Rafael Palmeiro (3)508.8

Players who are no longer eligible to be voted into the
National Baseball Hall of Fame by the Baseball Writers Association of America.